


Sisters and Lovers

by shewasagaystripper



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Bohemian Rhapsody scene inspired this, F/F, Roger is flirting but hes the Worst, shfhdsfhsfhsfhs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 16:58:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16685551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shewasagaystripper/pseuds/shewasagaystripper
Summary: Roger is taught that it is wrong to flirt with the sister of his best friend, but for an entirely different reason than the one he expects





	Sisters and Lovers

_‘So, Kash, what are you doing later today?’_

The second the words had left Roger’s mouth, he realised he had made a mistake - and not for any of the reasons one might expect. It wasn’t for her father’s silent cough and the displeased look he flashed into his direction. It wasn’t the perfectly serious and somewhat helpless ‘my homework?’ that Kashmira had uttered at him, looking at him with innocent dark eyes that betrayed she had no idea what he was getting at. It wasn’t even for the indignant kick against his sheen which he received from John across the table, although he had to admit that one really knew one had messed up when _John_ out of all people started interfering in the matter. Still, none of these reasons made Roger drop his gaze to his lap and remove the hand he had just fumbled around Kash’s shoulders; it had been the disapproving eyes of her older brother into his direction that had made Roger’s heart skip a beat.

Of course, he had had to deal with unhappy family members before. Someone who was as prone to going around and trying to see what he could get as he was, was bound to end up eye in eye with the angry male counterparts of his female victims. He had seen upset fathers, protective brothers, jealous exes and even jealous boyfriends and husbands… Usually he had managed to shrug it off without as much of a blink of an eye. Not even the most overprotective fathers or muscular boyfriends had ever managed to make too much of an impression on him - but for some reason, it was Freddie, his best friend Freddie, who only had to flash him one look of disapproval to make Roger back off and wish he could vanish into thin air. He didn’t know what it was exactly; it could hardly be Freddie’s stature of physical strength, after all. His sarcasm and bitchiness could sting at times, but his was something Roger had trained himself to throw back at him with the same force as Freddie would have distributed against him. Kash wasn’t that much younger than he was, and she was an adult - so the only thing that was left that had left Roger frightened, were those eyes of liquid fire Freddie had flashed him he second he had chatted up his younger sister.

Fair enough - Roger could understand his friend felt uncomfortable about it. Now that he thought about it, he probably would not be too happy either if one of the boys had made an attempt at flirting with Clare. Although she was no longer a minor, Roger still felt protective over her, and he knew this feeling was probably even stronger in Freddie, who shared a larger age gap with his sister. Kash really was his younger sister, and he was the one to look after her - which once became very clear when the reply of Roger’s apology was denied.

‘I’m sorry, I was just trying to make some conversation,’ Roger apologised, but this did not make Freddie lay off. In fact, Roger would have sworn he could see Freddie’s eyes narrowing at him, as if this answer only fuelled his silent anger even more.

‘Could I have a word with you, _Roger_? In private?’ The quiet, business-like voice of Freddie somehow still managed to attract the attention of the entire birthday entourage gathered around the table. For Roger, however, it was the way Freddie addressed him by his full name instead of one of the usual diminutives or ‘darlings’ and ‘dears’ he was known for that told him he was in trouble. He had gone too far this time.

‘I’m sorry, Freddie, you know I didn’t mean it like-’ Roger tried, but Freddie cut him off half-sentence; no so much with words, but with a nod into the direction of the hallway. Roger wanted to protest again, but Freddie was already getting up from the chair and made it very clear that he would _not_ accept any backtalking in the current situation.

‘Farrokh, what are you doing?’ his mother, who was sitting at the other end of the table and who had obviously missed out on the quiet argument, asked him.

‘Nothing much, mama. I just need to say something to Roger,’ Freddie answered her with the same quiet aggressiveness he had treated Roger with. It made the drummer feel even more awkward; the last thing he had wanted to do was dragging Jer, or anyone else of the dozen of guests to Freddie’s birthday for that matter, into this silent awkwardness his clumsy and inappropriate comment towards Kashmira had landed him into. Roger decided that it was probably best to just follow Freddie and make his apologies to him and to his sister in private, to save himself from being hauled off his chair by a very impatient looking Freddie, and to save the crowd from having to witness an event like that. The cold emphasis Freddie had placed on his name twice by now had already turned multiple heads into his direction, and Roger feared that if they continued at this rate, even Mary’s auditory impaired father would be able to sense the tension in their conversation.

‘I’m coming,’ Roger mumbled in a tone close to defeat, not daring to look at either Kash, Brian, John, or whoever else was surrounding him when he stood up from his chair. He evaded their probing eyes as he obediently followed Freddie out of the door, feeling his heart beating faster when they located themselves towards the hallway.

The door leading to the living room was shut by Freddie with more force, and Roger was almost pushed into the corner between the wall and the stairs by his friend, who by now had his arms crossed and still gave him that destructive stare of his. Roger could hardly look up at him and stared at his own shoes while finding his most serious, sincerest voice to apologise with.

‘I’m really sorry, Freddie. Look, I’ll make my apologies to Kash, and I promise it’ll never happen again,’ he said, but his friend wasn’t having any of it.

‘Roger, what you just did was _not_ okay,’ Freddie said in a voice that reminded Roger of the one your parents would use not when they were angry with something you’d done, but worse - when they were disappointed in you. ‘You can’t just pose such a question to my sister in her situation.’

‘I know,’ Roger acknowledged. ‘I know I was wrong, and I never should have said that. She’s the sister of my best friend, and your parents… I’m sure they’ll want someone decent for her instead of… whatever it is that I am.’ A bit of a short giggle escaped Roger, more out of nervousness than out of anything else. Unfortunately for him, Freddie did not seem to be in the mood to join him in his brief yet ill-fitting moment of giddiness.

‘That’s not the thing,’ Freddie said, and Roger could tell by the way he dug his fingernails into the skin of his own upper arm that he was tensed, frustrated, and not ready to let go of the slip Roger had made. ‘You put my sister in a _terrible_ position by asking her out right on the spot.’

Roger blushed - he hadn’t even given too much thought to how Kashmira might felt herself about the implication he had made with the question about what she would be doing later that night. He had never realised until now it was not just the fact that her parents would not want her to hang out with someone like him, or even an English boy in general, or that she was the sister of his best friend; he had put her in a position where she had little choice. He was older than she was, her brother’s best friend, and they had been in public, which could hardly be called an ideal situation for any person to reject he advances of someone, especially not for a young girl like Kash.

‘I didn’t mean it, seriously…’ he tried again weakly, starting to feel more and more guilty towards both his friend and his victim with every passing second.

‘But you still did,’ Freddie said accusatorily. ‘If you would have pressured her, she might be put onto the spot and have to admit she’s seeing someone in front of my whole family.’

That comment at last made Roger look up from his shoes and face Freddie. ‘She’s seeing someone?’

‘She has been for a while. Didn’t you know?’ Freddie asked him, and Roger shook his head resolutely.

‘How would I know whether the sister of my friend is dating someone?’ he shrugged, now feeling even worse about publicly having asked out the sister of his best friends, in the presence of her conservative parents, while she was apparently already taken by someone else on top of that. ‘You never told me.’

‘Why would I? I assumed Clare told you.’

‘Why would she tell me about Kash? They don’t know each other that well,’ Roger said as he though about his own younger sister, and her acquaintance with Kash. Clare and Kashmira had once met each other at one of the band’s performances, and while their brothers had been trying to fix  power cut number so-many of the night, the two girls had chatted away in the audience. They soon found out they both studied at the same school - Kash being a first year dental assistant student and Clare in her last year of midwifery training - and said hi to each other in the hallways and sat together during lunch at times, but that was about the extent of their friendship, as far as Roger was concerned.

‘They don’t know each other that well…’ Freddie repeated Roger slowly. ‘So Clare didn’t tell you, then?’ he added.

‘What should she have told me?’ Roger asked.

‘That she’s also seeing someone, perhaps?’ Freddie hinted with one eyebrow cocked at Roger, but the drummer just gave him a vague look.

‘No, never,’ Roger shrugged, but then came back to it with a somewhat indignant: ‘Wait, Clare is seeing someone and she told you, but no me?’

‘She didn’t tell me, dear, my _sister_ told me Clare’s seeing someone,’ Freddie corrected him, and the look in his eyes seemed to have changed from angry towards bright, a tad expecting even, perhaps.

Roger remained sceptical, though. ‘Who would she be seeing without telling her own family, and what does that have to do with Kash?’

Freddie rolled his eyes, and Roger was afraid he’d said something terribly insulting again. When the sly smile broke through on Freddie’s face, however, he knew he had not; he had merely said something extremely silly. ‘Do I need to spell it out for you, dear? Kash is seeing someone my family isn’t allowed to find out about, and Clare didn’t even tell her own brother she’s dating. Who do you _think_ our sisters are seeing?’

Roger’s eyes were glued on Freddie’s while he tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together, and it was the naughty sparkle in his friend’s dark eyes that eventually convinced him to make his conclusion public. ‘They’re… are they… they’re seeing each other?’

‘ _There_ we go!’ Freddie cried out in what seemed like relief that Roger had finally guessed the answer. Patting Roger on the shoulder with one perfectly manicured hand with five black fingertips, Freddie’s voice was laced in sarcasm as he said: ‘Good job on you for kicking that open door in, darling.’

‘You’re kidding! Are they really?’ Roger asked, turning his head towards the direction of the living room they came out of, as if he could see Kash right through the brick wall separating the two parties at the moment.

‘Yes, of course! Do you think I would make this up for the occasion?’ Freddie asked, seeming amused by the look of disbelief Roger knew for a fact must have been plastered across his face now that the meaning of Freddie’s words was starting to down on him. Kash and Clare were seeing each other. Kash and Clare were dating. Kash and Clare were together… His sister, who he remembered having helped to learn her how to walk, whom he had pushed on the swing and collected pebbles with at the side of the beach on sunny days out with the family. His sister, who he had helped find her way around the high school they had both attended, whom he had stood up for against his mother when she’d been out until too late while at the same time lecturing her on being careful with herself the second their mother would close the living room door on them to go back to bed in the middle of the night. Clare, for whom he had applauded through all her accomplishments; passing her high school exams, getting her drivers’ licence, being accepted into medical school. He had always been there for her with all her first times; the first time she’d walked her own steps without assistance, the first time she’d ridden a bicycle, gone to school, throwing a party… All her first times, apart from the first time she had taken home a boy, because that was the one thing she had never done in her life. She had never had a lack of friends, for she could collect all the boys and girls she liked to go out with, sit next to at school, or go to see movies with - but never had she introduced one of those boys as her date, her boyfriend, her love interest. And now it suddenly became clear that this was not because she wasn’t interested in boys yet or felt she wasn’t ready to date one, but because she simply didn’t care about boys, period. She liked girls - she liked the sister of his best friend, in this amazing twist of events - and Roger could not believe she had never told him and that he had missed all the signs.

‘No, no, of course not… I just can’t believe that I didn’t know!’ Roger exclaimed as Clare’s entire life story projected itself in front of his irises. Freddie shared the element of surprise with him.

‘It does kind of surprise me, to be honest. For someone claiming they know _exactly_ what women want, it’s kind of stupid you were hitting on my lesbian sister,’ Freddie grinned widely enough to lay bare his teeth, which indicated that he was really, _really_ amused by Roger’s failed attempt at flirting.

Roger sighed loudly, which was his way of wordlessly admitting his defeat. ‘I guess this is gonna be something you’ll tease me with for the rest of my days, I suppose?’

‘I’ll add it to the long list of dumb things I’ve seen you do overtime,’ Freddie smiled.

‘Let me then hope that that time I blew up the microwave when I put a in scale inside of it, and when I was so drunk I mistook Brian for my grandmother, will be able to overshadow this event.’

‘They might,’ Freddie said, and added as what Roger thought was supposed to be a comforting note for him: ‘And if they don’t, I’m sure we’ll get to see you doing a lot more dumb stuff in the years to come which might help me forget this one.’

He did get some comfort out of it, though; not by the reminder of all the stupid things he’d probably pull off in a state of intoxication, infatuation, or plain clumsiness, but by the idea that they still had years and years to come. ‘So you’re not too angry with me anymore?’

‘Of course I’m not,’ Freddie said. ‘I just need you to understand that this is a serious matter, and that you don’t tell anyone - especially not my parents,’ he said with a nod into the direction of the door they’d come through mere minutes ago. ‘They’re rather conservative, you know; I’m sure they already have their doubts about my sexuality, but if they find out Kash swings the other way…’ Freddie looked unsure and made a vague gesture of the hand that did not signify specifically much on its own, but the manner in which Freddie faced down and seemed at a loss for words told Roger all he needed to know - if the point of Freddie’s speech hadn’t hit home long ago already.

‘Of course. Of course I’d never tell anyone. And I’ll make sure no one will find out on my watch. My parents probably wouldn’t be too happy either if they found out that Clare… well, that she’s into girls,’ Roger said. It felt weird to say this for the first time, because his sister hadn’t even confirmed her apparent relationship on her own yet. But he trusted Freddie on his word, and he was going to have a word with Clare when he’d catch her alone at home that weekend. Not to reprove her for keeping things a secret for him, but to let her know he supported her and that he’d be on her side - that of Kash and her, more specifically - even if their parents would not be.

In an attempt to put these thoughts into words, Roger told Freddie: ‘But I’m happy for her, and for Kashmira. I know Clare like no one else, and from what I’ve seen of Kash, they could be so good together. They’ve got my blessing and my protection. I’ll make sure no one will find out, and if they do, I’ll make sure no one hurts them. That’s what brothers are for. To make sure no one stands in the way of their little sisters’ happiness.’

‘You’re the best, my dear. I knew I could rely on you,’ Freddie said, stepping closer and wrapping his arms tightly around him in a warm hug Roger had never expected he’d receive back here in this cold hallway when Freddie had first expressed his desire to have a word with him in private. ‘And as long as we’ve got their back, they’ll be fine.’

‘You’re right,’ Roger said as he squeezed Freddie tighter into his embrace. ‘Everyone knows that with the power of the both of us combined, we might break a fingernail or anyone who harasses them.’ He heard Freddie huff out a laugh against his shoulder before the lead singer broke away from him, and it meant the world to Roger to see Freddie happy again; happy that they were both on the same page concerning their sisters, that they would stand by them and protect them if needed with whatever it was they could do. Though they both knew they could do but little to physically protect them, they knew they could give their sisters all their love and support in the world, which they hoped would suffice.

Pulling away from the embrace he had initiated, Freddie said: ‘Come on, dear, we should go back to the party again, before my mother will come back here and drop her home made chocolate pie when she sees us full-on hugging in the hallway. One close call was enough for today.’

Roger agreed to this, and with one more quick embrace and words of promise, they walked back to the living room they had abandoned rather suddenly a few minutes ago. Multiple heads turned and looked when they settled down again as if nothing had happened, but both Freddie and Roger ignored everyone, apart from the wink Freddie flashed his friend, trustee, and possible future brother in law when Roger sat down and turned to Kash with a more appropriate subject.

‘Well, Kash, your schoolwork then. What subjects do you have this semester? And are they any good?’ he asked, giving his sister’s lover an encouraging smile as Kashmira set about telling him of her school programme.

 


End file.
